A Day in the Life – Homeschool Post (Ages almost 8, 10, 12)

It has been a while since I just wrote about one of our days. I thought I would write up a quick post about the flow of our day. In our homeschool, no day is exactly like another. 🙂

Today I had to drag myself out of bed. I was up until nearly 3am last night working on the computer (on some school stuff for the kids and some behind the scenes stuff on the blog.). Sometimes that’s the only quiet, uninterrupted time I have. At the beginning of the year, I really tried to make the morning work (by going to bed earlier). But it seems like I’m a night owl when it comes to *really* getting stuff done.

Anyway, once I was up (about 8:15), we jumped right into our day. LD was already eating breakfast and reading. He is reading To Kill a Mockingbird (affiliate link) for literature. ED had already been up for a while and had done some of her math. She asked if I would read from Harry (Potter), but by the time I made my coffee and some breakfast DD was up. So instead, I read from A Wind in the Door: (affiliate link) the second book in Time Quartet series which starts with A Wrinkle in Time. We always have good conversations from that series… Today day we chatted about what it is like to be different (and if people really are singled out and/or teased for being different).

From there, we were going to wander over to the homeschool room to start German and history. I started a fire in the wood stove. (It sure is cold outside!!)… but during the LONG trip from the kitchen to the homeschool room (being sarcastic there… the rooms are adjacent), someone got lost. So instead I told the other two to start on their math.

By the time they found their math books, the other person was ready for history… but I still went with math instead of history for the moment.

ED is always the first to be finished with math. I had her look at the Animals and Their Groups— an activity we did years ago (printable is free at that post). I printed all 5 sets of cards out on one sheet and had her read them over to see if she could remember them all… a school of fish, a mob of wallabies, a swarm of grasshoppers, an army of frogs… She enjoyed that. And, when the others came in they grabbed the paper from her to check those out too. DD pointed out that I left out a “drive of dragons.” I had the matching page printed out for her, but she didn’t get to that and will do that tomorrow.

While the girls were waiting for LD to finish his math and other work, the girls read for a while… I read Hatchet (affiliate link) aloud with DD for a little bit. That’s the lit book we’re reading together. LD and I are reading Lord of the Flies (affiliate link) and using a literature guide with that (that is terrific), but we didn’t get a chance to read together today.

Eventually, they all finished up and we gathered in front of the wood stove together. I pulled out our history book, The Story of the Renaissance (affiliate link), and read from that. We had just finished the section on the main Italian city-states (Venice, Milan, the Papal States, Naples and Florence) and had moved on to the Medici family. I had a notebook page ready for them, but we got so wrapped up in the reading and discussion that we never got around to it. (We’ll do that tomorrow.)

I love the way this history book is written, the history is fascinating! We got side-tracked all throughout our reading. We had talks about what “fraud” is and about why bankers and making money was considered to be so bad in the Middle Ages and how this led to the support of the arts and charities… and even got side tracked about what Florence itself looks like. We wound up running downstairs to the basement and pulling out my old, old photo albums and looking at pictures of a trip I took to Italy with my parents. (Meanwhile, ED and DD decided to do some painting while I read. They were all sitting on the floor right in front of the wood stove.)

Now truth be told, that led to us looking at old family photos from where we lived in Australia, my old high school photos and stuff like that! Quite a tangent!

I got a phone call which derailed us for a bit. So, I sent LD off to finish up some writing work. The girls read for a while (literature) and ED practiced the piano. (Um, and actually wound up playing balloon wars if I’m going to have this post be totally honest!)

Once I was off the phone, we were going to then do German, but we were all hungry by that point. I made lunch (meatloaf/green beans/salad/oranges because we all have activities and are out until about 9pm tonight!). While I made lunch (dinner?!!), we managed to get in just a quick 15 minute session of Writing Workshop (just the writing, no mini-lesson for the day). DD wrote a really clever poem.

Then while we were eating lunch I pulled out our science. We are working on our biology unit and are currently on the biomes. Last week, we spent most of the weeks on the abiotic factors (ie. weather, fire, soil types). That was pretty challenging! This week we’re covering the dominant plants and animals of the major biomes. As we ate, I read out some of the dominant plants (or animals) and the kids had to determine which one it was. Those were pretty easy for all of them. Below you can see all the biomes cards and worksheets there on the dining room table. (Yes, it’s hard to keep our table clutter free!)

I also took ED’s animal groups page (from earlier) and tested the kids… an army of… (frogs), a pride of… (lions), a troop of… (monkeys). They shouted out the answers. Definitely want to go over those again tomorrow! Those are pretty tricky (and fun to know!).

Then we finally (finally!) got to German. We listened to a Bobo story (it’s a set of children’s stories. We have the books and CDs.). Then the kids acted out a dialogue (a restaurant scene) from one of the books we’re using. Two of them were guests and the other person was the waiter.

Whew, and that was it. There was about 45 minutes before we had to head out for afternoon activities. LD has gymnastics practice and ED does rhythmic gymnastics (with the hoop, ball, rope, ribbon, clubs, etc.). DD still has to practice the flute for her lesson in the morning. (She has online/Skype lessons through takelessons.com. She loves her flute teacher!) And this evening I have choir practice.

So, that’s a pretty typical day. We actually touched on most of our major subjects (though didn’t get to language arts like spelling/grammar today)… and only touched the surface in science today. But I find that we spend more time on one thing one day, and then spend more time on other things on other day. It all works out in the end. 🙂

And of course remember that on the days we don’t get much done… I never, ever feel like writing a post like this, but believe me we have plenty of those days too!!! ~Liesl

Disclosure: Please note that some of the links in this post are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, I will earn a commission if you decide to make a purchase.

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Hi! I’m Liesl!

Do you believe education can be exciting, inspiring, and full of joy? We do too!
I love the quote by William Butler Yeats, "Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." It's about getting the kids involved, engaged, and fired up about learning (while juggling the rest of life too!)

A bit about me: I have my Master's from Brown University. I have more than 20 years of teaching experience. I was a high school teacher for many years both in the U.S. and internationally and also taught for the University of Maryland before leaving to homeschool my 3 wonderful kids.
To read more about us CLICK HERE.

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